The Fiction of Us
by Invariant
Summary: Peter and Olivia have discovered their own fan-fiction. This is a series dedicated to how they deal with that addiction. : T to be safe.
1. The Introduction Fic

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I just PART-TAY with them!:)**

**Author's Note: This series is dedicated to the dare I was given. I was told I wouldn't do something like this because it's not my usual flavor, but alas, I took up the challenge. :) This series is primarily a 'what-if?' about what would happen if our POlivia stumbled on this website, and in turn, got maybe...a little bit addicted to reading about themselves. Yeah, I know that it's maybe been done before, but I'm not sure if it's ever been quite in this way. **

**Every chapter consists of our characters indulging in a different story. I think I'm really going to continue this for a while and explore the different genres of various fan-fictions and how *they* would perceive it. I've got two chapters completed and working on a third so I'll post-up the first two simultaneously. **

**Enjoy, kays? And again, reviews are like candy! I eat 'em up and they keep me going. :) **

* * *

**The Fiction of Us**

* * *

_Click. Click. snicker. chortle. The hell I would. small laugh. No shit Sherlock. She would not. Yeah, cause that's what he'd say. Another quiet laugh. Another loud click._

He's been at it for hours, this commentary, fully indulged in the bi-polar concentration he's directed at his laptop, his face, lit from the screen has been a slide-show of quick reaction, amusement, disgust, unease and intrigue, all playing across his features sporadically, taking on the different roles of a world-wide web fascination.

From behind her book, she's tried to ignore it, chalk it up to a different opinion toward world news, a discontent maybe of a political viewpoint, an inner eye-roll toward another tabloid factoid; all customary tunes of the internet browsing he busies himself with when their alone time is quiet like this, just comfortable, just together.

But she's finding now, that his computer-driven antics are turning to a rare form of pestilence, wearing her patience thin, not an easy feat as of late, since she's allowed herself to appreciate this kind of normalcy; evening domesticity, like dinner at her place every Sunday, a movie at his every Friday, a foot-rub, a shared toothbrush, and a place in her bed he's told her he'll never want to leave from.

But this, this is getting ridiculous. Never before has he sat there, on the comfy end of her couch, so responsively transfixed on what's on the other side of his Notebook; like a Web-addicted, type-key punching moth-monkey to an Intel-Processor flame.

It's really begun to stab at her annoyance, and less admittedly, her curiosity, her mental-exhaustion's secret _I-want-in-on-the-what _fuse, and when again, his face contorts, and he utters something, indelible, most probably sarcastic under his breath, it's cut quickly by the small curl of his mouth as his eyes scan something else, a new page, a new paragraph maybe, and it makes him say "yeah, _okay_," before it turns to an unconvinced chuckle.

"Mind if I ask what, exactly, you're doing over there?" she finally gives in, nudging him with her toe, digging it into one of the socked ankles lazily crossed over her foot; the legs he propped on top of hers when she claimed the coffee table as her stool this time.

He's not quick to answer, his eyes still glued to the monitor, his nose crinkling for a second, and when his brows knit it's a cross between entertainment, fascination, disgust, and when he speaks up, it's toward the computer first. "What the fuck? There's no way in hell..." then a click, click, click and he's with her.

"Believe it or not, I am-" Click. "reading our fan-fiction."

"Our what?"

"Our fan-fiction, you know, it's when our fan-base decides to literarily depict our lives in ways imagined and, at times, very, very far-reaching, and then publish them on a website solely dedicated to a billion and one different muses. And let me tell you, some of these...god, Liv, I mean, disturbing doesn't even come close. I have no interest, whatsoever, in Lincoln's 'little Lee'."

She thinks she understands, recollects a time once or twice when Astrid tried to educate her in the varying degrees of a venerating fan-base, but honestly, there's so much crammed in her mind all the time, there's just no vacancy sometimes for that kind of information.

Though with everything she is, she owes her love, her respect, to the ardent admirers she knows but can't see; the three point three million enthusiastic devotees who keep track of every up and down of their life, every turn, play it out and around with them inside their roller-coaster of a fate.

And suddenly, thoughtfully, she wonders if any of them has ever dreamed up the scenario where he'd burned himself on the ice-box his father turned into a heating core, or whacked his elbow hard on the doorway while hauling in her new kitchen table.

In her defense, she'd told him it wasn't made for _"inflagrante delicto_", as he'd so animatedly put it then.

She wonders if, per chance, all those writers think up things that really happen.

"And if they're not disturbing, then they're ridiculously OOC," he continues on, "to the point of polka-dot unicorns or, you know… zombies wearing striped togas."

Leave it to Peter to not have just said "unbelievable". This is one of those times again, when he's purposely over-exaggerating his reactively ornery mood.

Obviously, he's still trying to get over what he's read, wipe away the mental picture through over-the-top juvenile sardonicism.

And she's only a little envious that he, so impressively, never wears this kind of perturbation for more then seconds on the outside.

"OOC?"

She questions.

"Yeah, it's a denoting term, it means out of character."

Two clicks and then;

"Listen to this: _Peter_..." he points to himself, "..that's me." She rolls her eyes.

"..._Peter walked in the door after working in the lab the whole night. The first thing he wanted was to see Olivia, her shiny green eyes welcoming him home. Hey, Schnookums, my muffin are you here? I just had to come home early, I couldn't wait to kiss you again. You won't believe how excited I am to do that. Olivia was in the kitchen when she heard his voice. She delighted in the endearment. She loves how he calls her a new thing everyday like his muffin, or pumpkin, or cookie..." _

He stops, looks up at her, his face a strangle of mock pain, embarrassment maybe, and there's even a light hint of reprobation despite his forming smirk.

"And to think, I haven't even called you by a pastry name since last Tuesday. "

"No, actually, you made us _stop_ for pastries last Tuesday, remember? Before work, because, what was it you said? "My over-active libido drives you to starvation". And didn't you follow it up later by saying it would have been funnier if you'd used the words 'makes me want to eat something'?"

In the self-satisfied way he is with himself, his eyes twinkle when she puts down her copy of the latest John Grisham. That deliciously flirty blue-gray is soaked in self-amusement when he points at his screen.

"This me says; "No. That doesn't sound like me at all.""

This makes her snort, laugh a little, as suddenly, she's finding herself way too immersed in this game. She narrows her eyes, playfully inquisitive.

"What else is on there?"

"Beware, honey bun," he says, that mock look over-glamorized, "it can get pithy in the land of make-believe and schmooze."

"God, you know, I don't know if you know this, but when you're being intentionally facetious, you have a tendency to _not _talk like a normal person."

"You're telling me, my Dutch apple pie, my sweet crumbling crust, I've never used the word "_shnookums_" in my life."

"I get it. You can stop calling me after desserts now, okay?"

"Why? Don't you love it? Doesn't it just delight you all over when I'm comparing you to baked goods? There's nothing I'd rather do all day, my yummy Dunham cupcake, then imagine you rolling naked in frosting."

"It thrills me to no end." she deadpans, trying hard not to let him see her stretching grin. "It also makes me want to get out my gun."

His shit-eating smirk is plastered all over his face when he peers at her above the thin monitor. This look is exciting, dangerous, back-to-earth normal Peter.

"Even if I tell you that I'd lick it off?"

Immediately, she feels her cheeks flush, a blush of visionary subconscious, all the damp ghost marks where he raws her skin with his tongue. In real life, he needs no incentive besides her taste…her yummy Dunham taste.

The clever bastard must have known she'd decipher the buried implication.

She clears her throat, ducks her head for a second like he also knew she would, and when he turns back to his task, she decides this would be easier if she wasn't across from him.

She's not missing out on this fun.

So it's when she's sufficiently snuggled into his side, that she leans into the computer's screen too, watches as he glides the cursor over a different hot-link.

"You sure you're up for this, Brownie-boo?"

"I swear to god, keep it up..." she warns, and it's when he chuckles to himself, pleased with her reaction, that he clicks on another story aptly titled, "The Aftermath of Three Little Words."

_He's practically shredded the files in his hands by simply his grip, angry, again, that she's offering him nothing other then her quiet, the cold air of evasion she's given him ever since he said it, ever since his abrupt confession in the Hoover building hallway three days ago. _

_For Christ's sake, it's not like he told her he slept with her sister or that he doesn't like it that she always, always has to wear neutral colors._

_This shouldn't be something she'd take so much goddamn offense to. What kind of normal person would be so __upset __about this? _

_"Jesus Liv, could you please tell me what I'm supposed to do to fix this? Because to be honest with you, I'm tired of walking around in a daze wondering if your three second mood-shift is going to hold me accountable forever for the way I feel about you. I don't want to do this, anymore. I don't want to have to walk on eggshells to keep you from hating me anymore then apparently, you already do." _

_"I don't hate you."_

_"Really? So the clenched glares and silence you give me, those are what? Looks of admiration? Not in my book." _

_She says nothing to this, only thins her lips white. _

_"You know, usually, when people are told how someone feels about them, they're a little more sympathetic, and a little less abrasive toward that affection. I get that maybe you're a little shocked, a little scared even, honestly, it's expected, but don't blame me because you don't know how to handle the fact that I'm in love with you. _

_"It's true, and it's there, and it's real and you're either going to have to accept it or learn to get over it. And I'm not waiting until you decide it's okay to wear red every once and a while for you to figure this out. It shouldn't take you that long."_

_He's clearly pissed, internally livid even, intentionally hitting her with a mix of insult and shame and as she tempers back her own ire, her own verbally offensive counter-attack, he's already starting to walk away._

_"Let me know when you make up your mind about how you want this partnership to work."_

_End scene._

In the grand scheme of things this latest wasn't bad, the idea was original enough, and not hardly over-decorated, and she can tell by his silence, as he's skimming further down the page, that he's not as taken a-back by this posting as the before-one either.

And though, in the start, this was meant to be fictionally introspective, she's finding that another emotion has hit her; self-discernment.

For almost five months now, they've been past the proverbial point they've hit in this story, but still, she can't help feel a little small, ashamed even, that at one point in their relationship she was, at least, somewhat like this written version of herself. Scared, un-decisive, so emotionally fragile in the face of her love for him, that she'd doubly erected her steeled exterior to shield herself from it.

This one hadn't veered, so drastically, to the left of her character, her personality...her three second-mood shifts.

There was a point she feared that giving in would make her weak, susceptible. Not strengthen her, as it's so forcefully proven.

"Stop it." she hears him say, and when she's brought back to him, he's looking at her softly. He knows exactly where her mind went. "It's just a story, Liv. Please don't think about it so much."

And all she can do is nod, smile slightly, assure the freshly fragile arcs of his face that she's fine, hasn't pulled herself in so deep she hasn't figured out by now, how to pull herself out.

"I'm not." she lies, and by the look he's wearing he knows it, but lets it slide, grants her the personal determination she's taken to recently; the willful intent to let things go more easily.

To better it, she decides to play on a lighter, arguably fictitious side of the story.

"You don't think I'm normal when I'm mad?"

"Of course not." he answers, "You're my little sprinkled doughnut. There's nothing normal about that."

She laughs a little, then kisses his shoulder as he exits the page, veers to a new link and when he clicks on it;

"I've always liked you better in green anyway."

* * *

End Note: If any of you guys have any idea about a kind of fic they should read or anything, please leave me the suggestion. Ideas are always tasty to my muse.:)


	2. The HerandMeandYouandThatUs Fic

**Author's Note: This chapter is dedicated to Elialys who, because she's SUCH A SWEETIE, gave me the permission to incorporate her story, "Letting it Out" in here. I fell in love with it when I read it and couldn't help my compulsion to *have* to use it. **

**Thanks again, honey. I owe you forevers! ((hugs))**

* * *

The Fiction of Us

* * *

_"I won't lie, Olivia, I'm grieving you." He confessed and his voice broke on the last word. "Even if it's not really…you. And it's not her, definitely not her. But…I was in love, yes." He stared at her, hard, hoping she could feel what he felt. "She…she used the feelings I had for you, and she turned them against me. She made me believe that I was…that I was loving you. That I was making you happy. And I wanted so hard to believe it, because you had been through so much, and nobody deserves happiness more than you do. I was feeling like…for once in my life, I was doing something right."_

_And as the reality of what had really been came crashing down on him once again, he dry-heaved._

_"She's taken everything from me too."_

There's an uninvited wetness at the edge of her eyes as she reads this, and cursing it, she wipes back the tear with a knuckle.

Ironically enough she promised herself, before she'd clicked on this story that she'd stay passive, unaffected anymore by these fan-produced words, but dammit, her involuntary reactions are winning out.

Before he'd left to make coffee and breakfast, he'd made her swear that she'd stay away from any summary involving her time 'over there', his 'over here' with her other, but in the end, her curiosity won out. And as she sits here now at the computer desk, in nothing but his dress shirt, one leg tucked under her with the other dangling off the chair, everything inside of her has followed the direction of her foot, sunk in and swallowed by the black hole in the floor.

He'd gotten drunk in this story, tried to down his sorrow, his regret, into one too many shot glasses, and she had to save him from the end of a bloody-fisted bar fight. At this point, in this fiction, he was dizzy-headed, bruised and cut-up, bleeding more then crimson into her bathroom floor tiles. So many, so many of his emotions were captured in here, in five-thousand plus words, his shame of it all then, his self-disgust, his self-loathing and still, somehow, his unyielding love for her, the real her, overpowered them all.

And she's drawn, vindictively, to the screen, as she presses in the down arrow, her emptied chest a heavy ache as she bites the inside of her cheek.

_Only instincts and force of habits from his younger years permitted him to reach for the toilet bowl on time for his whiskey to come out in the right place._

_He didn't even care about the fact that he was throwing his guts up in front of her. He was feeling beyond miserable at the moment, and all he could do was cling to that intense anatomical relief that came with the simple action of freeing your body of a poisonous substance._

_He just let it out._

_He let it all out._

She breathes in, and it hurts, stings her lungs with the reality that this is how it was for him, this, all of this, is how miserable, how heart-broken, and desolate, he'd truly been at the time.

Interesting that she doesn't even consider anymore, how hurt she was, how heart-wrenched. In the grand picture, her once-misery she could handle now, hardly thinks about, got over long ago when she finally let him love her, touch her, be with her.

True happiness was a vow to move on and never look back.

_There was no trace of disgust on her face, as she cleaned him up with a cold clothe. And the emotion displayed there definitely wasn't cold indifference._

_She was avoiding his gaze though, but he couldn't blame her. Her eyes looked steamy again, and he really didn't want her to shed one more tear because of him._

_But his heart was thumping too fast and too hard and too loud for him to do nothing at all, as she gently tended his wounds._

_All of them. Even the one she couldn't see._

_So he reached out for her, slowly, stopping her hand by holding it in his._

_And so she gave in and met his eyes._

But reading of his inner-torment, with the masterful skill of this author, has crafted her own now.

"_I'm sorry, 'Livia." He whispered. The tears were there, in her eyes. But they didn't roll down her face this time._

_Instead, she offered him the slightest, saddest smile of all, tilting her head in a way that was so…her._

_"I'm sorry too," she whispered back, and she squeezed his fingers in hers._

When she registers this last sentence, she has to blow out air, in a long, drawn breath, willing the numb goose-flesh on her skin to tamper down. To help, she runs a hand through her hair, loose strands he'd left a kiss in minutes ago, and despite her shaken-up nerves, she's overcome suddenly, with the reality of how different they are now.

They've moved on from all this, talked about it, bled it out until it became a dead horse, a sleeping dog, and through each other's arms they'd restored what they'd created over there, when she'd kissed him for the first time, and though it should be persuading her now, to revel in the beautiful truth of what they have, there's still the after-note of this story that's beating hot under her flesh.

It's making her feel the need to re-assure, to remind him again that she's real, and she's right here, and every part of her is his to take, his to have.

So compelled, she gets up, moves until she finds him in the kitchen, leaning against her counter, immersed in the newspaper, as he brings his mug to his lips, takes a sip.

He must hear her because he comments on an article, something about the presidential address, but she hardly cares, can only digest his realness in front of her, dark T-shirt, tussled hair, a pale-gray absorption above an accompanying purse of his mouth. He's distracted from the look she has to be wearing, empathy, understanding, an all over -gratitude that he's here, and he's comfortable, free to make himself at home at her place because she'd stopped being angry at him and that her and that then-life so many months ago.

And before she knows it, she's across the threshold and she's kissing him, pouring everything she is into his delicious flavor, and it's deep and it's yearning and she tastes coffee, love, and exhilaration on the tip of his tongue, and it heats her, flushes over her whole body in a shuddering excitement, an elated chill that has her pressing him, harder, into the counter's edge, but before it goes further, before she can drink until she's superbly inebriated, he pulls her back. And when he lifts her chin, that pale-gray is searching her, a frown woven into that deep, beautiful crease between his brow and he's studying her, searching for the real reason of this impromptu embrace. He's tasted intent in her kiss, the whisper of her then-guilt, and her re-assurance now that she knows better, this is the way it's meant to be, and when he's read it in her face, that line softens before he swallows.

In the way he always does, he simply accepts that she's read what she promised she wouldn't, understands in only the way that he can, all the degrees of her stubborn, obstinately inclined personality.

So he breaths it out. And when he speaks, his voice is hardly above a whisper.

"Whatever it said, it was just someone's perception, Liv." another reminder, another plea. "That's all it was."

"I know but it doesn't mean it's not a fair one."

He says nothing on this, knows, as she, that some things deduced aren't always so off-par, strayed the course, and when she brings her hand to his cheek, his stubble tickles her palm, grates under her finger-pads and she feels the phantom trace of it inside her right thigh.

She runs her thumb along the line of his bottom lip, then his chin and jaw, before it climbs to a soft-stretch of arced-bone, smoothing inside it those beautiful smile lines at his eyes' edge. It's as if she's molding out the realness of him, taking in all the ways he was right when he told her she wasn't too damaged to love, to be loved, that together they're beautiful if only she'd see it, allow it, embrace it.

That her only took everything from the them when they let her, and they wouldn't let her. Everything wasn't hers to have anymore.

They belong to each other. They're meant for this life.

"I love you, you know that right?" she tells him now, as a cascade of heat presses-up behind her eyes, "That-that everything that happened before, with her, with us, it just-it just doesn't matter now."

That gray is soft, translucently blue, as it lines with realization's result, a teetering sadness inside compassion, drawn from the place where he'd shield her, if he could, from all the things that deter her strength, all the bad things in the world that only add more dark places to her over-crowded thinking space.

"I do know." he responds, his breath falling over her face, her neck, "It's why I wish you wouldn't have read it. You weren't supposed to wonder if I didn't."

She has to turn her eyes from his face, feeling ashamed suddenly and small under the air of his disappointment, and when she clamps down on her bottom lip, she watches the way her hands smooth over his chest, taking in his body heat under the thin cotton.

And the steady rise and fall of it tells her, like always, he won't hold this against her, that above all else, he knows she does what she wants when she wants, and truth be told, he's told her,as frustrating as it is sometimes it's just another reason I love you.

He admires her fortitude in every version of it.

When she breathes out it's between a hum and a purr, and before she even speaks, she feels her mouth form into a shy, demure curve.

"I couldn't help it."

She admits, pressing into him a little more, using her femininity, her womanhood, to lure him away from his quiet deprecation. And by the way he's moved against her, his jeans frictioning against her bare legs as his hands come to grip her hips with gentle force, pull her closer, it's definitely working. The sensation baits her breath, makes her pulse beat deeper, faster, wilder.

"And if I didn't know that too, I wouldn't know you at all, would I?"

He responds, his voice a whisper, as the smell of him pervades their close distance, mountain spring and coffee and bourbon and musk, and the scent makes her writhe in his hold, makes certain places under her flesh throb with desire, squirm in the kind of carnal lust that scratches at her nerve-ends, drives them into a hotly-sexual hysteria in his air.

To tame herself, she runs her fingers over the smooth grit of his shirt's graphic. A purple squirrel declaring he's got the biggest nuts. She cracked up when he came home with this, cracked up when he put in on her the next morning.

Somewhere in her mind she wonders if any of them, any of those authors knows he's like this at home. Carefree, fun, eccentric to a fault. She wonders if any of them understands that he does it for her, knows that she needs it, that she feels normal because of it.

The easy feel of this moment now has him pressing his forehead against hers, his breath even as his touch burns into her sides, and when she closes her eyes, his hands run up and down her hips in a gentle caress. It's only amplifying that hot, hot hysteria and he knows it.

It's quiet for a few seconds more, there's only the whispering sound of a passing semi-truck out the window, the coffee maker dripping-out, their souls sighing together in the arms of the other then;

"Did I end up with her?"

His voice is raspy when he asks this, the tone serenely conversational, innately curious. And as she envisions again a certain depiction in the story, it makes her chuckle lightly.

"No," she answers, before she looks up at him, "No, but you did end up on my bathroom floor." her smile stretches. "Throwing up into my toilet."

The contortion of his face makes him look away, in disgust, in defense, in mild amusement, a new iteration of the reactions she watched cross his features days ago, behind the screen of his laptop.

"Ugh…" he says finally, as he turns back to her, and when he does, abhorrence changes suddenly into something dangerous, a thrilling shadow that falls over his boyish handsomeness, plays, delightfully, over every surface of his face. Then his brow raises, his eyes darkening to slate-blue as his pupils dilate, the hands on her hips beginning to sift under her shirt. She catches the sensation in the back of her throat.

"Did you coddle me back to health?"

That gunmetal half-hides now, behind thick fans of dark lashes, and as his lips curl up, she feels his desire pulsing through her veins, choking up her senses with the unbridled excitement that sparks anything invisible between them when they do this.

"Sort of."

She replies, almost breathless, and she arcs her back slightly, the pressure of his fingertips coiling deep in her belly, teasing somewhere too hotly sensitive for her to remain self-contained for much longer. So she has to rub the back of her calve with her foot, clench in on the low-burning fire that's making her fist his shirt in her hands.

"I'll let you coddle me right now."

He's teasing her, mercilessly, the guttural tone only adding to the inferno licking every side of her skin, and again, she finds herself purring into him, the hot-surge pricking in her middle starting to span out and downward, into her toes, through her fingertips, but she won't give-in to it, not yet because two can play this game.

"Will you?"

She flirts back, raising herself up to his height, pushing the rest of her body into him, and when he groans, she feels his heart-beat start to thread, race faster as his breath hitches, but his grin, that damn smugly-gorgeous grin is the anchor of his control.

"In fact," he says, his mouth so close to hers she can taste it. "I think I burned my tongue on my coffee. You should take care of that for me."

"And what do I get out of it?"

In answer, his right hand is skimming the thin lace of what she'd dug out of the covers this morning, and it's driving that fire wild, feverish with hot-hot needles, and she moans low against his neck when he tugs on it, playfully, and patience now is quickly, way to quickly becoming an impossible concept.

"You get to have your way with me for the next nine minutes." he tells her, and somewhere in the back of her mind she remembers it's Monday and they work, and they're needed in early, but it's hardly a pressing matter now in the face of what's overtaken her entirely. She doesn't care, she just wants him, every gloriously beautiful bare inch of him against her. "I'll let you thank me sufficiently after-."

With the force of her impatience, she's swallowed his words, her mouth crushing his, forcing him into the counter-top with impressive intensity, and against her lips, he's smiling, wickedly satisfied with the edge he's driven her too. And after she's pried off that ridiculous T-shirt, after he's pinned her between his delicious body and the kitchen wall, molten gold curling, spasming, shooting here there and everywhere until its hot summit is buried in the breathless cry she digs into his shoulder, they're unashamedly, unapologetically, thirty minutes late for work.

And they'd do it all over again. So let somebody write about that.

* * *

**End Note: The next chapter...duh,duh, dum...is strictly dedicated to the things about Peter us fan girls LOVE and therefore, write about. It's significantly lighter then this one. I like variety. :) Trust me, it'll be interesting. LOL.**


	3. The ThingsAboutPeter Fic

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I just like to play with them!**

**Author's Note: Sorry guys that this took so long to get up here. Was on vacation for a bit this month otherwise it would have appeared sooner.**

**This installment is dedicated to something I read a while back. A fanfiction that, I'm relatively certain, was written by a very exuberant Josh Jackson/Peter loving fan-author. I have to admit, I don't mind that he's so damn good looking either. Makes me happy in all the right ways. Lol. But the particulars of this story are two points that I couldn't help over-exaggerate. This fan base truly is the best! **

**As per usual, everything in italics is the fan-fiction inside the story. **

**Elialys, honey, you know this is for you. It's always for you, chica. ((big hugs)**

* * *

**The Fiction of Us**

* * *

In these kind of late night hours she's taken to this, just watching him from her post at her bedroom doorway, leaning against the frame in silent contemplation, in reverie of the way he leisurely lounges in her bed so comfortably, so rightly, as if the mattress itself was made to nest his body in a god-like ease.

As is custom now, he's balancing his computer on top of his lap, the dark Notebook covering the only article of clothing he's wearing, red boxers, ones she's pretty sure she'd slid off with her toes at some point last week, shimmied down his hips with impressive skill as he'd chuckled against her mouth.

His hair is damp, and judging by the tantalizing waft of sporty-aqua in the air, he's just showered, scrubbed away all the fingerprints she'd marked-up that gloriously almost-naked body with earlier. And she finds herself clamping down on her bottom lip now, afraid the width of her grin would look too stupidly silly if it flashed, unrestrained, across her face.

She'd read a story yesterday, about a version of her doing this, just watching him, studying him, the way he moved his body in nimble ease around the lab, his muscles spry, agile, once ready to run, now, comfortably lithe in this fucked-up fringe world of theirs. Even those writers, all those fan authors, have noticed the ways his recluse character has changed, matured into the man who wants nothing more then a home in her eyes, to be right here, in her bed, at five o- clock in the morning, carelessly tapping away while he reads, consumes, imagines and negates.

_She loves looking at him, _that story said, _she doesn't know if she's ever seen such beautiful masculinity, not in huge brawn or bravado but in pure subtleness, lean muscle, a runner's form, slender yet strong, so strong, perfect in the moments she's let him comfort her, wrap his arms around her, openly care for her because that's what he does: care. He's good at it and she's told him so. _

_No, she doesn't think she's ever seen anything so radiant, even his hair, his goddamn hair is something she's never known. Short, long, wavy, she doesn't think it would matter how he wears it, she loves it, imagines gripping it under her fingers, scratching his scalp when she attacks him with her mouth. Oh that mouth, that beautiful mouth and its well-defined philtrum, that deep groove above his upper lip that takes on its own sexiness, crazes her with yearning, just like his hair. She doesn't even want to get started on his stubble, his exciting five o' clock shadow that, since the day she met him-_

"I know you're trying to picture me naked."

The words interrupt her thought train, pull her back to the present with nector and smoke, and when she focuses, again, his eyes are still on the monitor, narrowed, digesting, but he's wearing a smooth smirk. Like always he feels her attention, the invisible charge that's hot between them, bouncing through airwaves, sound waves, and nature itself.

She'd read of that at one point, too. Given everything that isn't, at times, she's stunned by just how much is adequately ascertained; captured in words by mere strangers simply because they are how they are with each other; magnetized, chemically attracted; helplessly in love.

"But I'm sorry to tell you," he pauses, presses on a key, "my true lusciousness is hard to envision."

Then, he looks up at nothing, frowns lightly while he tilts his head slightly, as if a sudden idea just popped into his beautiful mind and carefully, the laptop slides off the side of his lap, over just enough for him to take in his tempting state. A cocky grey-heather roams over their person, from feet to bare chest, and it's carving a smart-alecky grin on his face.

"Huh," he says, and it's a guise, a play-game because he knows he's wearing close to nothing but this tease is too fun. "Look at that." that grin stretches, bares the top line of his teeth when he looks over at her. "It must be your lucky day."

"Must be."

She plays along, raising a brow, and she's so taken by his inducement that she has to bite harder on her bottom lip. And low in his throat, he chuckles while she makes her way across the bedroom, way too eager, at the moment, to climb into the other side of the bed.

Or on top of him, is more like it really.

"Did you know I have hair porn?"

He asks her this when she's at the foot of the mattress, and it makes her pause, attempt to determine what it is he's just declared.

"You have what?"

It's asked blankly, as blank as the logic she's come up with in two seconds, and from behind the screen, that damn-cheeky smile colors his whole face in what looks like some kind of amused adulation.

"Apparently my," he squints, reads. "_cranial tufts of chestnut silk" _are so sexy, they have their own designated genre."

She can't believe what she's hearing.

"You're joking."

"Nope." the word was said with way too much enjoyment. "Apparently you're taken to just_…"staring at Peter's hair from across the lab, wishing oh so very much you could run your fingers through the dark curl and dishevelment that makes all your lady parts tingle."_

Suddenly she's warm all over, a whole-body flush of embarrassment that's stunned her immobile, glued her into the carpet under her. Oh god, people actually write about that kind of thing?

"It does not say that."

She states in denial, hopeful, praying, that this is just part of his game, but with his eyes still adhered to the screen, that smile gains playful wickedness.

"Clear as day."

"What?" she feels her grimace carve between her brows. "Why would anyone-"

She climbs on the bed, intent on observing the proof for herself, and when she grabs the laptop, she turns it toward her till it's crooked, teetering across his lap.

_Oh the things she'd do to that beautiful head of hair if she could. Pull on it, yank it, curl her fingers into it when she's hot and ready and he's skimming down her thighs with his-_

Oh god.

She knew it was inevitable, expected even, that these kind of story plots existed, pointless, erotic, pornographic even but for good reason she's evaded them in whole, not wanting to read about how it is, exactly, their sex life is imagined in the minds of third person parties. That he would evade them too was asking the impossible. He is a man, after all. He abuses the hell out of classless, male meandering by reading these types of things.

Still, it unnerves her to have this part of their intimacy depicted publicly, tactlessly, and it aggravates her to think that nothing anymore is sacred if it can be splashed so harshly, so elaborately, over a type-print internet canvas.

Honestly, this part of their life, the supposedly private aspect of it, is no one's business but their own.

Not to mention, this story in particular is about his goddamn, admittedly, gorgeous head of hair. It's no one's business, either, just how much she likes it. It's not their place to have perceived her secret, innately female musings so acutely, so accurately.

No way in hell is she so obvious. That's just not supposed to happen.

"I can't believe they'd have a story about this."

The words are irritated, almost disgusted when she turns the computer back around, and she's trying hard not to feel naked in front of a crowd, her private character strewn across the well trampled ground of grabby, fan-fictitious hands.

"Or you're ashamed to admit it's true."

He says it so bluntly, and she snorts, a little angry because of course, he'd point out her truth, and she doesn't like any of this and he knows that, too.

"Oh, don't flatter yourself."

She retorts, as she crosses her arms across her chest, and when he looks at her, his eyes are thin in personal amusement.

"Am I?" he asks her, alluringly, and it makes her squirm. "You had a damn good grip on it last night."

Her tongue is between her teeth and bottom lip now, as he stares her down, that tickled blue-heather bearing just a hint of slate; a color of the lust that's always there, lurking, hiding behind his eyes, and her skin.

"I even found a sore spot this morning." he reports, for effect, turning back to the laptop. "When I shampooed my "_imperial filaments."_

Before she can even roll her eyes, he carries on.

"If you ask me, I think my hair makes you just as tingly as my pea coat."

This catches her off guard, and she doesn't know whether to frown, be embarrassed again, or raise a brow. Involuntarily, she settles for the latter. If she internally analyzed this again, too, the headache would only aggravate her six degrees of self-frustration.

"Your pea coat?" she questions, waiting, and he nods, his smile almost idiotic now.

"It has its own faction."

"Oh god."

He wiggles on the bed, obnoxiously, relishing in the fun he's getting out of this.

"Don't lie." he demands. "You like yanking on that too. You can't wait to get it off me."

When he looks at her, she knows her cheeks are already flushed, her throat, already constricted and that slate darkens, his brows and lashes dropping suggestively, wantonly, but his smirk holds his tease, his game.

"You're just brutal towards my "_luxuriousness_."

Her whole body's on edge now, as he peers into her, this flirtation turning into the uncontrollable urge that takes her over, the phantom rush of hot gold that pushes into her chest and between her thighs because always, he's delicious, disheveled, flushed and warm and stubbly and beautiful, and god, right now she feels the breath in his body, that temptingly almost-naked body.

And right now, these types of moments; the chemically hot, invisibly sparking ones are raw, real, inaccessible to all those prying authors.

This, them, they, might be depicted and abused in so many ways but all the real time of their together life is like right now, theirs alone to know, to create, to exhaust and take stock in. They know the truth of how they are, what they are, what they have, and really, it's all that matters.

Their real love, real life, is no one's but their own.

All those lusting, flailing, fan-girl authors may want his hair under their fingers, or to strip him of his pea-coat, and even clothes, but the pleasure, the other-worldly, toe-curling, color spiraling pleasure is so very much only hers. And there's something endearingly sexy in that now, something excitingly carnal because she can have him pliable, willing, and hot under her fingers, groaning her name into her shoulder after he swallows her scream, and none of them can have that side of him.

He's hers, gloriously, wonderful, magnificently, only hers. And goddamn, she needs to get him away from that computer before she spontaneously combusts.

"You know what?" she says, her voice quieter then she'd have liked, "You need to stop reading these."

Carefully, she closes the lid, slides it off his lap, and she feels his readiness to oblige, his discernment of her new mood, before she even takes the Notebook's place, straddles his silk-clad hips while pushing her fingers into his shoulders.

And low in his throat he groans, writhes underneath her while his eyes grow dark, lusty, hungry as they drink her in and he slides his hands under her nightshirt, skimming over her thighs with trained aggression, and when he tightens his hold, he clenches his lower half into her and the sensation catches in her throat, bows her back, begins to throb, exceedingly, in the place their bodies are met.

And she runs her hands up his neck, his five-o-clock shadow a tantalizing coarseness on the base of her palms, a rough sand that only promises her raw-red marks of gratification.

His voice is low, thick with sexual gravel when he speaks next.

"You need to control your "_everything Peter addiction."_

From above him she smiles, her mouth centimeters from his, while she cradles him harder, grinding into him, and it makes the exposed skin of her belly kiss his torso, their flesh, mutually warm, mutually ready, undoubtedly magnetic.

"That's just not going to happen."

She tells him in a whisper, lowing her mouth so close to his she can taste his next words.

"Lucky you then."

And like only he can, he makes her purr, contented, elated, when she captures his lips, the taste somehow, amazingly sweeter because she's so much more aware now, that this honey is hers, his soft tongue and inebriating flavor is solely hers, only hers, and god help her, she's going to take advantage of this candy-good gift for the rest of her life.

She deepens the kiss and it pushes him back into the headboard, and into her mouth he moans, and it excites her still, and her hands roam now from his jaw to the tender spots below his ears, but before she can carry out her initiative, he moves his lips against hers.

"Hmm, wait…" he says, and pulls her back, "wait…" and disappointed, confused, she frowns down on him, but that damn smirk, that goddamn gorgeous smirk is giving him away, "….watch the hair."

And after he says it, she does roll her eyes, but like he knew she would, she ignores him completely, twisting her fingers into the chestnut silk, massaging his scalp with her impatience.

"Shut up, Peter."

She commands, almost breathlessly now, and those beautiful eyes are impossibly thick-lashed, and heavy with what's firing under skin, too.

"Make me."

He dares, and god knows, he doesn't have to ask her twice.


	4. The Me,You and Our Partner Fic

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I just like taking them out to play. :)**

**Author's Note: Sorry it's taken me so long to update you guys, had SO MUCH going on this summer that to actually have time to write was far and few between. Finally had an hour this morning to sit down and write this. **

**This chapter is dedicated to those of you who've actually read a fiction involving Linc/Liv and Petah _'inflagrante delicto_'. Have to be honest, I've never had the balls (or desire) to read such a fan-fiction. Thankfully, for the entertainment of ya'll, Peter doesn't feel the same. **

**As always, Elialys, this is for you sweetie! I've missed you! ((hugs))**

* * *

If he thinks she doesn't feel his eyes on her, he's wrong.

He's been sporadically peering over here, for the last two and half minutes, his focus moving from his work on the desk and then back up to her, a conspicuous and irritating curiousness of whatever Peter-esque thing he's thought up to contemplate now.

They're supposed to be finishing up their latest case reports, signing off on all the gritty, grimy, unnatural details so they can get the weekend off like they'd been promised.

But instead of paying attention to the papers in front of him, he's clicking the pen between his finger and thumb, obnoxiously, his mind clearly immersed in the invisible place that requires he keep looking up at her, and after the eighteenth instance of today's annoying habit, she can't take it anymore.

And when she sighs, she drops her shoulders, pinches the bridge of her nose as a tension headache threatens her sinus wall.

"What, Peter?" she asks, eyes closed. "What is it this time? Because obviously, you're too distracted to help me finish this paperwork."

When she looks up at him, his brow is furrowed, his cheek, dented while he bites the inside of it, and the narrow set of his grey-blue concentration shows he's trying hard to deduce something, an inquisitiveness of silent wheels that turn, always, way too loudly when he deliberates like this, to himself.

Or so he thinks. After so much time together, she should know him so well.

The pen stops as he leans back in his chair, his face, bearing now, the beginning of a cocky smirk when he scratches his chin absently.

"Would you sleep with Lincoln?

The question stuns her, freezes her, replaces her irritation with something incredulous, flabbergasted.

"What?"

His eyes are tapered sparkles of blue, harboring the self-amused crease that etches out his frown, and they bury under his brow when he looks at her, suggestively, below his black-fan of lashes.

"Have you ever had any…secret thoughts and desires about our skittishly enigmatic Agent Lee?"

Again, she's speechless, answerless, and the force of this new frustration has her sitting back in her chair to match his pose.

"What? Why are you asking me this?"

"Why are you avoiding my question with a question?"

This is ridiculous, he knows well that there's no one but him, hasn't been anyone, truly, besides him since that day, four and a half years ago when she tracked down his sarcastic, arrogant ass in Afghanistan, and really, she's starting to feel a little peeved, a little pissed off that he'd even think to ask her something as absurd as this.

For god's sake, he's spent the last hour and a half dawdling over it, most likely picturing her and their partner in questionable, and most probably sexually lewd predicaments, and it's disgusting and innately male, and an absolutely ludicrous waste of time for them both.

Maybe the apple doesn't always fall so far from the insane Bishop tree.

"Why in the hell would you ask me that?"

She doubts she really wants to know, is afraid to find out from what part of his mind's curious spectrum this is coming from, but when he leans his weight back on the desk, runs his teeth across the skin of his bottom lip, she's starting to think she may have a good idea.

Oh good god.

And when he speaks next, his face is a simulation of pout and offense, like a child who's just had his favorite toy ripped from his hands, and already, she fears the mockery that's coming.

"I see the way you two look at each other." he states, accusatorily, his face, still a rouse of disappointment. "I mean, really Liv, right in front of me?"

That beautiful mouth turns down now, in a second's haste, sets his features in a liquid fragility, and his eyes grow wide, gray-pale and almost watery because damn it, he's good at this, acting, faking, yanking her chain with his humor. Then, with a purposely stern upper lip he concludes.

"You could at least be a little more sensitive." He pauses for effect. "You know how I feel about him."

She'd laugh if it didn't come out as a defeated sigh instead, a soft groan into her hands as she's reminded, again, that this new fan-fiction reading habit of his is teetering dangerously on the edge of becoming a wrist-scratching addiction.

"You read a fan-fiction about us and Lincoln again, didn't you?"

Her tone was drawn, mundane, rhetorical, expecting of his male tendency toward viewing perverse erotica.

How in the hell he can handle such abhorrent illustrations is beyond her. Just the thought makes her want to throw up in her mouth. More then a little.

"Guilty."

He admits and when she groans again, it sounds too much like an irritated whimper, an exasperated noise because she's wishing, and she knows it's in vain, that he'd give up this genre of his hobby. She just doesn't understand the appeal. Then again, she doesn't grow a five o clock shadow, scratch her belly hair or have a scrotum either.

"Peter, why-

"There was an Eiffel tower in it this time," he starts to explain, as though it's reason enough, because to him it is. "But it wasn't in Paris. Lincoln did scream something in French though."

"Oh my god."

She breathes into her hands, trying, desperately, not to picture the scene in her mind's eye. God, she can already taste bile.

"I know." he says, more to himself then her, "I always pictured him as the silent type, too."

Oh god, this was too much information, too heavy with visions she'd have gone all her real life without imagining, and she squirms in her seat, suddenly way too uncomfortable from the fictional suggestion.

"And you know, I should have at least gotten a cigarette after what I did for both of you." he says this and it's both a whine and a statement while he throws a hand in the air, casually lounging back in the chair till his knees hit the desk, "but no, instead I sleep for fifteen hours." his voice raises, the octave passionately argumentative, as he's become too seriously enthralled in the notion of this despite its ridiculousness, its flat out repulsive pointlessness. This, right now, is his self-consummation in his flippant form of sarcasm. "Fifteen hours, Liv." he elaborates, purposely, "As if I don't have a job, or a life, or I don't know, an alarm clock."

"Unbelievable."

"You're telling me. No sex god needs that much sleep."

She blows out an exasperated breath, bats away an invisible hair from her face before her fingers brush through the whisper-gold of her crown.

"I'm talking about the story, Peter." she says, aggravated now, that she's even so effected by this.

This is classic Peter Bishop, uber-testosterone infused- male, sarcastic ass-extordinaire. And god-fucking-damn her for secretly loving the hell out of his thirteen year old methods and the crack they form along her steeled professionalism. God knows she doesn't have the audacity to be so carelessly silly when she's wearing pants suits and holstering a Smith and Wesson.

Office hours, however, have never applied to the man she's helplessly in love with.

"I don't know why you read stuff like that." she comments, knowing it'll fall on deaf ears. "It's extremely disturbing, not to mention, absolutely disgusting."

His brows draw down again, and dark-cerulean thins out playfully.

"Are you saying you've never imagined…" his lip curls up, teasingly, "…savoring a Pecoln sandwich with every one of your five, sexually charged senses?"

Oh god. For the love of-

"No." she answers, desperately keeping the image at bay. "I haven't, and to answer your earlier question, it's no, too. I've never wanted to sleep with Lincoln, and you know that." She feels her forehead tighten as her voice raises. "In fact, I've never even imagined of him, professionally or otherwise, in any way whatsoever, and I know, you know that too."

Her breath is hard, when she inhales the end of her words, but instead of taken-aback, the look he's wearing tells her this is the reaction he wanted from her, flustered, frustrated… distressed.

Son of a bitch.

He clucks his tongue against the inside of his cheek, as that damn appealing twinkle shines in his stare.

"You know, you should see yourself when you get defensive," he points at her with the pen he'd obsessively clicked earlier, and for a moment, she wonders if that smirk would still be there if she stabbed him with it. Most likely. Probably. For sure. "You get this cute little line above your nose. It's adorable."

There's an eight year-old amusement, now, written all over his beautiful face and in the way it always does, it's convincing her to resign her irritation, to realize this is all a game he's concocted to entertain his boredom. And to her dismay and un-admitting appreciation, her boredom too.

Involuntarily, her mouth curves with her next words.

"Look, if you're going to indulge your male hormones by reading that kind of thing, please just don't tell me about it, okay?"

He throws his hands in the air, clearly pleased that she's given up her resistance and broke into a smile.

"_Vous me blesser, mademoiselle_!" He says, in mock defense. "You know you're the only thing that truly indulges my male hormones."

She blushes, and he pretends not to notice before he continues. "This, is simply mindless entertainment on an erotically scarring scale. "

"Yeah, a scarring scale I'd rather not be exposed too."

His hands hit his lap with a loud 'plop' as his eyes grow wide.

"Don't tell me, tell Lincoln, according to our fan base, he likes exposing things to you."

She closes her eyes, rubs them as she fights her grin from betraying her earlier façade anymore.

"Jesus, Peter-"

"No, he's not in this story. Astrid shows up though."

"Ugh."

"Wouldn't a foursome just be called an orgy though, I mean, let's be honest-"

Now it's her turn to throw her arms up, as she feels a slight pain run behind her eye-lids, creep up her temples.

"Stop, okay? Please god, I don't want to hear anymore."

She hears him chuckle, satisfied, and when she lets in light, again, it seers through her skull while he's staring at her, in what looks like both awe and placation.

She doesn't know if she's more surprised by his sudden quiet, or intrigued by the way he can look at her like this, and always, something sears, bubbles, heats her from her fingertips to her middle, and so she swallows, sets her jaw as she feels her cheeks redden from his study.

She knows he's waiting for her to say it, but she swears this time she won't. Nope. She won't do it…..she refuses. Will absolutely not ask….

Oh fuck it.

"What?" she questions, and already hates herself for it.

"I knew you'd admit it."

"Admit what?"

"That I'm a god. Sexually."

That searing she feels only indulges him, pulses deeper between her solar plexus, and she moves in her seat, trying to calm her sexually-static Peter-nerves. It makes her bite her molars together before she eyes him with a raised brow.

"If I say yes, would you stop?"

"I don't know." he answers, to fucking thrilled with her over-stimulated reaction. "Test the theory."

She shifts, licks her bottom lip before crossing her arms across her chest again.

"Fine." This time when her mouth curves, it's on purpose. "You satisfy me in ways I could never imagine."

"Satisfy you more then Lincoln ever could?"

"Peter-"

He opens his palm in the air on her warning, continues with his diatribe from before.

"I gotta tell ya', sweat and limbs were everywhere after Astrid joined us, some kind of indistinguishably gooey stuff too. I think it was-"

Oh, fucking fine.

"Ugh, yes, okay?" She admits, augmenting her tone, rolling her eyes. "You hit all the erogenous spots no one else ever can, because no one else is a self-absorbed sex god that knows how to make me scream in almighty bliss."

She lowers her shoulders, settles.

"There. Now are you done?"

That fucking beautiful smirk gains enough width, it crinkles those beautiful eye lines.

Fuck.

"I would be." he admits. "But I should probably tell you…Lincoln told me that exact same thing last night."

She was right. He did like being stabbed with that pen way, way too much.


End file.
